Police probe Times email hack claim

Labour backbencher Tom Watson says police are investigating allegations of email hacking at The Times

Police are investigating allegations of email hacking at The Times, an MP has said.

Labour backbencher Tom Watson said Scotland Yard had informed him the newspaper was being probed after admitting that one of its reporters tried to access a private account.

The Times named Lancashire detective Richard Horton as the author of the award-winning NightJack blog in June 2009 after the High Court refused to grant him anonymity.

James Harding, the paper's editor, told the Leveson Inquiry last month that one of his reporters - named as Patrick Foster - was issued with a formal written warning for professional misconduct for gaining unauthorised access to Mr Horton's email account.

In a further letter to the inquiry, Mr Harding said: "When the reporter informed his managers that, in the course of his investigation, he had on his own initiative sought unauthorised access to an email account, he was told that if he wanted to pursue the story he had to use legitimate means to do so.

"He did, identifying the person at the heart of the story using his own sources and information publicly available on the internet. On that basis we made the case in the High Court that the newspaper should be allowed to publish in the public interest. After the judge ruled that we could publish in the public interest, we did."

Mr Foster was formally disciplined, and has since left the newspaper, Mr Harding said. In a letter to the Met on January 23, Mr Watson - a long-term campaigner on the hacking issue - urged officers to examine whether a crime had been committed and whether the newspaper had misled the court.

"In an attempt to protect his privacy, the police officer in question sought an injunction," the MP wrote. "Far from putting forward a public interest defence, lawyers representing The Times claimed that the information was obtained through entirely legitimate means...

"It is clear that a crime has been committed - illicit hacking of personal emails. It is almost certain that a judge was misled."

A Met spokesman said: "We can confirm that a letter was received on Monday January 23 from MP Tom Watson. Officers from Operation Tuleta are in contact with Mr Watson in relation to specific issues he wishes to raise and we are not prepared to give a running commentary on the Tuleta investigation."